Using The Public Radio Business Model

After the Fact Funding

Actually, it's a business model that has been used by non-profits, including religious groups, for decades...even centuries.  Giving hinges on, "Does the content or the outcomes match the values and lifestyles of a targeted audience?" 

There used to be this public radio fund drive pitch that asked, what if other businesses came to you after you used their product and services and asked if you would be willing pay whatever you feel the service was worth. Our answer was that pitch would not work in the business world, but somehow it worked for public radio.  Here's that pitch put toward the greater good.

This Store Lets You Pay What You Can For Groceries That Would Otherwise Be Tossed

It’s saving perfectly good food from going to waste

The food and Agricultural organization of the United Nations estimates that 33% of food produced for human consumption in the world gets lost or wasted. That's about 1.3 billion tons a year. Per capita waste is at its worst in Europe and North America.

SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction

Podcast Income

Can Podcasts be a source of income for public radio? From a station's perspective...Yes ...as long as expectations aren't too high.

There are three sources of income for public radio. Member Support - Underwriting - Grants. Listener support for podcasts has lagged. Is that changing?

The headline reads...WNYC boosts podcast income with text-to-donate efforts...which is a little misleading. Digging deeper into the article in Current you will find that the amounts are small ($10), and there's no way to mine the data for follow-up information.

Voluntary Support

Does this mean the experiment is a failure? No! It means there is the possibility stations could cover the cost of podcasts, and WNYC is continuing the experiment to find ways to continue the funding discussion with text-to-donate contributors. The willingness of podcast users to voluntarily contribute for the content they consume is a hopeful sign. Obviously, not everybody is willing to pay, but how is that different from the current membership model?

WNPR experimented with a text-to-donate fundrive in 2008. The sames issues arose. The donation amounts were small and the link between the donation and the donor was non-existent. WNPR's text to donate drive differed in that we used the airwaves to generate texts. The pitch breaks were short and the number of breaks were limited. We got about 100 texts and about $1,000.

Self Sustaining?

Given the huge demand for revenue to operate a public radio station, there was no follow-up on the project at WNPR. If the funding source is viewed as an additional revenue stream related to a separate platform, expectations might be more in line with reality. The other challenge is to convert the podcast cohort into public radio supporters. At least text to donate is a beginning. When combined with other sources like grants, advertising and pay walls, some podcasts could pay for themselves.

The Funding Trifecta

The renewal of grants depends on meeting stated expectations. The same could be said for advertising. As long as the podcast delivers an audience, the revenue will continue to come in. The public radio funding model has always been sustained by voluntary contributions. The most stable source of income for public broadcasters has always been its donors. If the other two sources lagged (grants and underwriting), contributions offered stability. The success of podcasts in public media will be measured by their appeal to the audience.

I Met a Man

There are great stories to tell everywhere. There are people doing incredible things in service to each other. Telling stories about communities coming together to support each other, can help us overcome the cynicism and negativity that seems to have taken over our politics and is on display every minute of every day on social media. The three stories below highlight people who are doing what they can to overcome crushing poverty in the richest state in the US.

Profiles From Grace Church, Hartford

I met a man who lost everything after his service to our country. He became homeless. When he was finally able to move into his family's home it had been vandalized. All the wiring and all the pipes had been stripped out of the walls. There's no heat, no water and no power. He lives there in the warmer months. He lives in a shelter in the winter. He considers himself lucky because he has VA benefits and his neighbors take care of his dog and two cats in the winter.

I met a man who spent four months in jail because he tried to help a woman who was the victim of a car jacking. He stood by this woman as the police arrived and lent his support. Because the man nominally fit the description of the carjacker (black, male, slender) he was arrested and thrown in jail. He could not afford bail, so he waited four months for the legal system to finally ask the victim if he was the one who assaulted her. She said no and he was finally released. He is clinically depressed, but has hope because of his part time employment made possible by Grace Church.

I met a woman at Grace Church who volunteers her time cutting the hair of the homeless and others who attend their weekly meal. Three weeks ago her house burned down. She missed one week, but was back after settling into a hotel room. She hopes to be back in her home six months from now.

Grace Church is stepping in where so many have failed.

According to NBC Connecticut in a report released in 2012, at 31.2 percent, Hartford's poverty rate is four times the 7.8 percent poverty rate of the suburbs, which include all 57 towns in Hartford County plus Tolland County and Middlesex County. City Data.com puts the percentage of families in Hartford below the poverty line at 43.4%.